Ah good ol’ new year’s resolutions.Most of us set them……and unfortunately most of us don’t follow through.Despite this there’s nothing wrong with a little self-improvement.A recent newspaper article stated that after 4 years of record growth in new car sales, 2018 is likely to be a flat year for kiwi dealerships.With that in mind now’s the perfect time to think about how you currently utilise AutoPlay, and set some new year’s resolutions about the role AutoPlay will play within your dealership in 2018.

1. I WILL BE BETTER AT TRACKING MY LEAD SOURCES AND CAMPAIGNSSome dealerships are fantastic at tracking the source of their leads and the campaigns that generated them. These dealers have a fantastic understanding of how both their own, and their brands marketing is affecting in dealership activity (not just sales!). On the flip side if you are only capturing lead sources for 50% of your leads then you are only seeing half the picture. Capturing lead sources and campaigns is easy and as of 17.4 you can now hide sources you don’t want to see. In 2018 managers need to take control of this process to ensure their sales teams are capturing this valuable info. Some AutoPlay clients make it part of sales KPI’s for their team, whilst others simply make the fields compulsory. However, it’s achieved, one of your biggest lead management goals for 2018 should be to increase the rate at which you are capturing Lead Sources and Campaigns.

2. I WILL IMPROVE MY UNDERSTANDING OF THE AUTOPLAY REPORTING SUITEBesides improving accuracy and efficiency across dealership processes, one of the real cherries on top of the AutoPlay pie is the huge amount of reporting we make available to dealerships at no additional cost. AutoPlay reports are designed to be easy to understand and digest, however like anything gaining true understanding requires work. In 2018 whether you are a salesperson, sales manager or dealer principal you should focus on really understanding some of the data at your fingertips. If you already have a basic understanding of AutoPlay reports then your focus should be on understanding what that data means. An example of this is knowing that 50 leads in awaiting action is likely to translate to 25 Test Drives and 10 Sales at your normal rates of conversion. This represents the next level of understanding over your reports which can help take performance and decision making to the next level.

3. I WILL TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE TOOLS I HAVE ACCESS TOAs a rule, most dealers use AutoPlay Sales Pipeline well – capturing leads, scanning driver’s licences and business cards and completing digital Test Drive, Appraisal and Write Up forms. With AutoPlay we don’t charge per lead entered, or per form completed. Most of our services follow a ‘fill your boots’ model – meaning users can really focus on taking advantage of the tools available to them. One aspect that can yield real benefits is the new Live Leads process which makes it easy to build a database from your captured leads, and automatically funnel any resulting follow up activity back against the customer and lead in the Sales Pipeline. AutoPlay will typically send one of these emails on behalf of each dealership who wants it, however we place no limits on how many Live Leads eDM’s each dealership can send if they create and manage the campaigns themselves. As the emails are templates with your branding and vehicle videos it’s incredibly easy to build these emails. If you are not taking advantage of this already jump on board.

4. I WILL MANAGE MY OVERDUE & STALLED LEADS One of the most common issues we see at dealerships is their response to Overdue or Stalled leads. Overdue leads are those that were due for action -3 to -20 days ago but have not been diarised forward yet. Stalled leads are more than 21 days overdue without being diarised forward. These leads are easily filtered to and management is alerted via Daily Health Checks and other reporting. However, what we commonly see is dealerships paralysed by fear when it comes to this data. For some reason many dealerships see huge value in their Overdue or Stalled leads and seem unable to make the decision to close the leads as lost. It sounds redundant, but there is no value in these leads unless you action them. There are several approaches to handle Overdue & Stalled leads.a. Allocate them to another salesperson – nothing is more effective at motivating salespeople to update their system than threatening to give those leads to another, more motivated salesperson. You can do this individually or in bulk using the ‘Bulk Allocate’ function.b. Close the leads as “Lost” – you don’t need to be scared of the word “lost”. In AutoPlay’s context all “lost” leads are still visible in the Sales Pipeline and can be easily found using the search filters. Closing leads as “lost” helps keep your dashboards manageable.c. Use AutoPlay Live Leads to retarget these Overdue or Stalled Leads by emailing them with Live Leads. You can do this by selecting Close Lost if you had previously do so, or alternatively you can use the other filters to isolate these Overdue or Stalled Leads. If the customer is still in the market the lead will be updated accordingly – saving time communicating individually with customers who may be more than 6 months overdue.

5. I WILL USE THE CALENDAR EFFECTIVELYThe calendar built into the Sales Pipeline enables users to diarise leads forward for future follow up. As the default AutoPlay dashboard is set to only show activity due in +/- 3 days, this means that you only see the leads you need to be focussing on right now. A good habit to get into at the end of handling each lead is treat the Sales Pipeline like your manager - tell us where you got to, and what you are going to do next. In practice this means updating the Lead Progress, then setting a Calendar event for follow up. This serves multiple purposes;a. Keeps your Dashboard clean and makes finding leads easierb. Minimises the number of leads falling through the cracks into Overdue or Stalled and being forgotten aboutc. Ensures the Morning Meeting Report contains accurate information about what is happening within the dealershipd. Ensures the Overdue Lead Report and Daily Health check provide management with an accurate reflection of salesperson activity

Sticking to these 5 new year’s resolutions can be an effective way to get better at using the AutoPlay Sales Pipeline, however they are not the only ways to make positive changes. We encourage all our customers to sit down, review their own usage and commit to 5 of their own lead management resolutions. If you have any questions about AutoPlay products & services, or wish to book training you can contact AutoPlay on support@autoplay.co.nz